


Better Left Unsaid

by MightyGlowCloud



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (if you can even call this a POV), Mild Blood, Not A Fix-It, Not Beta Read, POV Alternating, Post-Episode 154, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, hurt/angst, patch-up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-09-25 04:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20371030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MightyGlowCloud/pseuds/MightyGlowCloud
Summary: John gets hurt, Martin lets himself be seen, and they continue the conversation from MAG154 but a lot of things are left unsaid.





	Better Left Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> This whole situation could be better if these two idiots would just TALK TO EACH OTHER *repeatedly bashing head against wall*  
(I say, while making this not-at-all better for them)  

> 
> I started this directly after 147 and have been trying to get my migraine to cooperate and assure me that these are actual words that make sense, but here we are and I'm still only 80% sure this makes any form of sense. Apologies for this very bumpy ride; plot-holes galore!

"Well, I'll be here, if you ever need me."

"I hope so."

"Just don't wait too long, okay?" John stopped midway through the doorway, his scarred hand resting against the frame. He didn't turn to look at Martin, the weight and static of all the words and _questions_ pulling at him to do so, and all falling flat and heavy at his feet. Ignoring them all, he sighed, "If you haven't already."

"Yeah." The door shut slowly behind John's retreating form. Martin touched the doorknob briefly before his head fell against the wood with a dull, barely audible thud."Yeah."

Maybe he was too tired to not have noticed the cool air that brushed the small sections of exposed skin. Maybe it was the fact that his eyes were shut, and his back was turned, that he didn't notice the fog that rolled in and lapped at his ankles and calves in waves. He definitely wasn't distracted in thoughts of John and his frankly _idiotic _plan.

"I have to say, I'm rather impressed." Peter's voice carried from his nonchalant position of leaning on Martin's desk, but Martin could feel the breath on the back of his neck just as if he had been standing directly behind him.

"Christ! Could you- Don't-" Martin whirled around to pin his gaze on his constantly disappearing boss and took a frustrated breath in before letting it out in a slow sigh, "How long have you been there?"

"Long enough," Peter cocked his head slightly, looking past---or maybe **through** Martin---to the door and beyond, "Your Archivist is _really_ something, isn't he? I can really see why Elias likes him so much."

"He's not 'my' anything," Martin bit out, all sense of polite conversation gone out the window. Christ, he needed a cup of tea.

"Quite right," the smirk on Peter's face reminded Martin of a shark, teeth bared for an oncoming kill. Maybe it wasn't a shark... more like a snake, readying to strike at just the right moment.

* * *

He had barely gotten home over the course of a week, spending most of his time in the Archives either working or sleeping restlesly in the cot in his office. Sometimes he heard echoing laughter that made his head spin, or Basira and Daisy's footsteps pacing through empty hallways. Most of the time it was just Daisy's quiet footsteps that wandered and paced, and sometimes, stopped at his door. She never came in. She never knocked.

If a soothing cup of Daisy's favourite chamomile tea happened to be left in the kitchenette in a hurry on those nights when those same footsteps approached, well... it was purely coincidence, one that Peter never noticed. Nobody had ever really noticed that Martin preferred peppermint when he couldn't sleep anyway.

And on one such night exactly a week since John had burst into Martin's office he found himself brewing a strong mug of peppermint tea, flicking through some old statement files that Peter had dug up from **somewhere** claiming they held another fleeting insight into the Extinction.

"Rosie? Are you still-" An office door, John's by all indication, opened with a creak. Funny... he was sure that all the doors in the Archives were well-maintained to prevent excess noise. "No. Of course not." It was that small laugh that did him in. John didn't sound surprised that there was no one around at this late hour, although that in itself was no shock. No, what shocked Martin into action was just how... lonely he sounded. And so tired.

Martin stalled in the doorway, not wanting to be seen, but unable to help himself from looking up.

John walked past, one hand cradled protectively against his chest as blood dripped from a hidden wound, heading back towards his office.

_Dammit, John, what have you done this time?_

"Need help with that?"

"Martin! I-" Martin pulled away from the almost-hug that John had tried to initiate, still trying to get a sense of what had happened. John's face fell, and he stepped away, "Right, sorry. I'm sure you were just heading home, I don't want to keep you. I can manage." He didn't move away, so Martin didn't either.

"Don't you have assistants for this kind of thing?" Martin half-joked.

"Not so much anymore." Martin kept quiet as he led John to sit down at the table and went looking for the first-aid kit. John started talking again once Martin sat in front of him, "They're working on getting out of this place, so I... I don't want to bother them." 

"John, that's-" He wasn't sure what it was, but it wasn't-

"A **good** thing," John pressed, catching Martin's wrist with shaking hands. His skin tingled from the absentminded brush of John's thumb across his pulse. How long had it been since someone had touched him like this?

_Had John always seemed so small and fragile beside him?_

"So what happened, anyway?" The moment died like so many others before with barely a pause or breath to mark it as Martin pulled away to grab the disinfectant and gauze.

"I, uh... I saw a spider," His unoccupied hand fiddled with the hem of his sweater, twisting fingertips into soft fabric. "It scared me so badly I fell and cut myself on the corner of my own desk. Stupid, right?"

"I thought you couldn't do that anymore," Martin muttered, quietly enough that he thought it might slide by unnoticed.

"Which part? Getting hurt or getting scared?"

"Either. Both..." If he focused on the task at hand, maybe John wouldn't see the look in his eyes.

"Being scared isn't _new_, Martin."

"But," he hestitated for a moment, "Getting hurt is... Are you- Do you think maybe it's because you're..." _Starving yourself?_

John chuckled, "At least it wasn't the Hunt coming to finish the job. Might really have done me in then."

"The Hunt... Sorry, I don't- I'm not sure I follow..."

"Peter mustn't have told you," John's hand stilled and came to rest on his knee, digging in slightly, allowing the small points of pain to provide some kind of distraction from the questions that begged to be Asked. _Does he tell you anything? Is he even **helping**?_

"No. He didn't tell me." Because he hadn't seen Peter in a while. Because Peter never told him much when he **did.** _What else have I missed?_

"Nothing happened, really. Daisy scared them off before they could do anything," Martin thought of Daisy standing hesitantly at his door and wondered...

"Is she-?" _Is she_ g_etting free of this place? _Would that even free her of the blood and hunt that torment her, even under the meagre 'protection' of Beholding?

"I hope so. Melanie will be, at least. I'm not sure about Basira... I hope they all do."

"That's... that's great! I'm glad. It'll be good to have people with you." He didn't cry, even though tears pricked behind his eyes screaming for release.

He placed the final strip of tape in place, and started packing away the first-aid kit, standing and turning away from John. Letting himself feel the distance between them and preparing to sever the connection that still tugged between them like a strand of spider's web, tugging and ensnaring Martin in the promise that if he just stayed for another second that it would be easier. That allowing fog to creep in around the edges and numb anything, **everything** else, would be easier if he had one moment of warmth to hold onto, if only he didn't ask anything of him.

"Martin..." His tone left nothing else to do but meet John's eye, standing mere feet from him - the height difference all the more extreme given the situation. "I meant what I said, you know. I'm staying. For however long it takes." John cracked a grin that spoke of a much younger self, something from the early days with Tim and Sasha when John did manage to let loose a little, "End of the world or bust."

"John." The fog that had begun to blanket around him dissipated and gave way to a gaping chasm of fear and nausea, spared only by that same connecting thread he'd almost cut away. "That's idiotic! You have a way out. Take it! Get out of this place before-" _Before it kills you,_ he didn't finish.

"I don't care."

_You should._ Part of Martin wanted to beg or scream, to shake some sense into John as if doing so wouldn't feel like he'd run the risk of shaking him apart. Or if doing any of that would make any difference at all. _Please, take it._

"If you aren't leaving, then I'm not either. I could **help** if you'd just tell me-" Maybe it was the stern set of his jaw or the harsh glint of stubbornness in his eye that made Martin snap.

"So get one of your bloody tape recorders and do it already! Ask me. I know you want to." 

John's mouth opened reflexively, an instinct so ingrained that it was like watching a drowning man grab onto whatever he could reach to stop the inevitable.

"Martin, wh-" John broke himself off by clearing his throat, biting his tongue hard enough to taste blood, and by digging his fingernails into his palms as subtly as he could manage, "nevermind. Have a good night."

Whatever energy he had left went into collapsing into his chair and staring mutely at the floor. _It was nice to see you,_ he didn't add. _Take care of yourself._

"Yeah. You too, John."

The footsteps had long since faded from the hallway before John could breathe again. His skin crawled with the desire to chase after Martin, to demand an explanation for what was going on; his _statement_. His breath came out in a shaky sigh as he looked up at his hand, fingernails no longer digging into the large cut. Crescent moons of red had begun their slow appearance against the white of the bandage.

_Damn_.

John set to work rewrapping his hand, doing a mediocre job using his other hand.

A mug of tea sat cold and untouched on the table, presenting the same feeling of being watched and judged that pierced his head, forcing a migraine that had been clawing like static across his scalp since the spider interrupted his reading a statement.


End file.
